


a dog by any other name

by Duskglass



Series: harry potter & the ridiculous fix-its [1]
Category: Harry Potter (books)
Genre: (or Siriusly if you will), (this was inspired by the fact that Sirius technically has no canon-confirmed middle name), Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Multi POV, Post-Azkaban, Pre-Relationship, Sirius & Remus live, do not repost to other sites/apps, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duskglass/pseuds/Duskglass
Summary: in which Sirius Black is released from Azkaban after an anonymous tip brings a clerical error to light (and Remus Lupin never really expected this to work, but he went in prepared for the worst anyway)
Relationships: Remus/Sirius
Series: harry potter & the ridiculous fix-its [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994197
Comments: 6
Kudos: 186





	a dog by any other name

**Author's Note:**

> part ii was originally [posted on tumblr](https://dusk-writes.tumblr.com/post/630158110281089024/) for swottypotter's wofstar comfort mini-fest (prompt fill: 'forgiveness') -- finally finished editing the rest!   
>  (disclaimer: if you support jkr and/or agree with her racist transphobic misogynist bullshit, this work is Not For You. Trans Rights are human rights!! terfs gtfo)

**i.**

Sirius Black has been in Azkaban for ninety-nine full moons when, on one particularly dreary autumn day, the silvery glow of a Patronus suddenly lights the gloomy corridor outside his cell. 

This is distinctly unusual-- patronuses are only cast to shield Ministry visitors, and the kiss-row wing hardly ever receives such visits aside from the annual inspection, which always occurs at the summer solstice (as the island is slightly less intolerably frigid in the summer, and the lighting is better for the Official Prison Photographer, which for some unfathomable reason is a Thing-- though Sirius can't really complain as it's the only time they bother to cast a scourgify on him and get rid of what would otherwise be a truly horrible beard). Yet by his count, it has only been four moons since the last inspection... and the dementors have not been lingering around any particular cells, as they always do when a death is imminent, so this cannot be a deathbed visit either. Very curious indeed.

He sits up, pushing the tangle of hair back from his face, and crawls over to his cell door to get a better look-- he isn't the only ragged figure to appear at their bars, though he knows most of the others do so thoughtlessly, drawn by towards the patronus's calming warmth like moths to a light, instinctively seeking out the barest hint of relief and crying in despair as it passes them by, reaching through the bars with skeletal grasping hands.

Sirius feels it too, that tantalising flicker of _relief_ , but he will not give them the satisfaction of seeing his agony-- once they have gone, he will retreat back into Padfoot; he can hold out until then as he always does.

...Only this time, they stop directly in front of his cell, and the Ministry official regards him for a long moment with an expression of utmost disgust and loathing upon his face.

Sirius twitches his mouth into some approximation of a smile. 'To what do I owe this pleasure?' he drawls-- his voice is a ruined croak, but the sarcasm comes through clear enough.

'Up, Black,' one of the aurors at the official's shoulder growls.

Sirius raises an insolent eyebrow and doesn't move from where he's sat (he has very little left; he isn't about to easily give them what they want). 'I'm quite comfortable, thanks.' He gestures at the bleak stone walls of his cell. 'As I'm sure you can see, I've got quite a lot to be getting on with, so if you've got something to say to me I suggest you spit it out.'

The Ministry official looks as though he's just sucked a lemon-- with the proximity of the patronus, Sirius actually feels a small glimmer of pride that he can still elicit this reaction from arseholes in positions of power. 'Sirius _Alphard_ Black,' the man grits out, as though the words hurt his teeth. 'There has been a... _development_. You are to be released from Azkaban, effective immediately.'

Sirius scrambles upright at that, gripping the bars with white-knuckled hands, all pretense of nonchalance dropped. 'What-- _why_? Did you find--?'

'Stand back,' the auror snaps, brandishing his wand. 'I should warn you, Black-- any attempt to resist will result in further charges against you.'

'...Right.' Sirius backs against the far wall, carefully keeping his hands where they can see them as he scans their faces for any sign of deception-- or any clue as to what the fuck is going on here.

The strangest part of this is that they're not treating him like an innocent man who has spent years wrongly imprisoned in one of the worst places on earth. Rather, they regard him with the same degree of contempt with which the Un-Mother had once sneered at anything Muggle, like he's something foul-smelling stuck to the bottoms of their shoes. The cell door swings open with its usual rusty squeal, and they stand back, snap at him to move; he can feel their wands and glares trained on the back of his neck as they march him down the corridors and out of the fortress, onto the cold rocky cliffs.

The wind blows straight through his thin prison rags, and the rain soaks him at once, dripping from his filthy hair and tracking through the grime on his face and hands. He doesn't care, stops a moment to take a deep breath of the salty air (it smells exactly the same as it did from within the walls, but tastes all the sweeter for being _free_ ). He remains where he's stood until the auror's impatient growl at his back gets him moving again.

Vaguely, he recalls that he was brought to the island via portal-spell directly from the Ministry's underground holding cells, but this evidently is not on offer for his departure-- instead, he is guided along the narrow track that winds down the otherwise sheer cliff-faces, to a small pier soaked in ocean spray, the only physical means by which the island fortress may be reached. Here, a lone boat is moored, the same craft used to ferry food rations and other supplies to the island-- it rocks on the choppy waters, the gangplank scraping and bumping against the dock. The Ministry official's expression goes even more sour, and one of the aurors looks distinctly green.

Sirius grins. It comes a little more naturally this time.

The party makes its way on board, the surly-faced boatswizard looking on with flat indifference and copious amounts of rain sloughing off his waterproof hat and cloak, before retracting the gangplank with a wave of his wand. The mooring ropes slither like snakes up onto the rain-slicked deck and the anchor rises; the sails unfurl and turn to catch the wind, and then they are off, the dark walls of Azkaban melting into the grey driving rain behind them.

Sirius watches until it has vanished entirely, then turns forward, crossing the lurching deck towards the bow on unsteady legs. The boat has a cabin, which is dry and most likely layered with warming charms, but in that moment he finds the thought of more walls intolerable-- and, as he'd suspected, the aurors are evidently under orders to keep him in sight at all times, as they too remain on deck, shivering and looking very displeased about it. Sirius, who has not been properly warm in years, hardly notices the chill as the sea-spray and the rain rinse the grime from his face.

Briefly, he contemplates jumping overboard and swimming to shore as Padfoot to escape whatever they have planned for him, but the aurors are watching him too closely and he decides that it'd be too big of a risk, and anyway he doesn't want to leave until he knows what exactly has prompted all of this. He needs to know if they've caught the Rat.

The boat docks, and the now-thoroughly-soaked aurors hustle him down the gangplank and along the barren stone breakwater to a small wizarding hamlet nestled against the cliffs-- little more than a ramshackle inn and a smattering of small huts, the latter of which are all dark, either shuttered or vacant. The rain has let up but the sky is still dark with steel-grey clouds and the fast-approaching dusk; Sirius stumbles a little, the cobblestones rough under his bare feet and the shifting wandlight doing little to help illuminate the uneven track as they make their way towards the inn, its doorway illuminated by the hamlet's single outdoor lamp.

They file inside, and Sirius turns back towards the Ministry trio to demand answers at last-- but the official cuts him off.

'Your legal fund has seen fit to provide you with room and board here for the night,' he says stiffly. 'Be warned that, while your prior conviction may have been deemed invalid, any further offences will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.' With that, the man turns towards the inn's fireplace to floo away. 

'But _why_ \-- how d'you mean, _deemed invalid_?' Sirius impatiently pushes his sodden hair back from his face, frustration finally bubbling to the surface. 'What's all this about?'

'I am sure your solicitors will be in touch,' the man says frostily, before vanishing into a whirl of green flames.

Sirius gives a growl, and turns to the aurors, who both promptly raise their wands in warning (they _definitely_ don't think he's innocent). 'Will one of you tell me what the _fuck_ is going on?'

'We cannot discuss the details of the case,' says the older of the aurors-- Sirius thinks this is probably bullshit, but he can hardly prove it. 'We would advise that you go along quietly to your room, and await your owl there.'

There doesn't seem to be any way around it, so Sirius follows the innkeeper along a dark narrow corridor and into a room with only a single candle for light, set on a small table next to a small bread roll and a bowl of something lumpy and greyish that looks no better than Azkaban's prison slop. The door closes behind him with a sharp snap, and he's left alone with only his own thoughts.

Sirius lets out a deep breath, suddenly very tired, and figures he had better try to eat something-- but he only makes it three steps into the room before the jet of light hits him square in the chest, and he's thrown off his feet.

  
**ii.**

When Remus Lupin penned the anonymous letter to the advocacy office, he'd never truly expected this ridiculous scheme to _work_ \-- he'd been sick of the uncertainty, and it had been a last-ditch effort, a shot in the dark. It had come as a surprise when the story broke, when he heard Sirius Black was to be released.

Still, he'd thought he was prepared for this encounter-- he'd imagined that he would keep his cool, ask The Question with icy indifference and then carry out what he'd come here to do-- but with the ex-convict on the ground at his feet, all intents fly from his head, and he can't seem to do anything but stare.

It is painfully clear that Azkaban has taken its toll on Sirius-- he is little more than a skeleton beneath the threadbare prison rags, his hair a filthy tangled mess and his eyes bruised and sunken. But when those eyes open, they are the same piercing grey as before, sharp and alert.

'Are you going to kill me, Remus?' he croaks from where he's sprawled on the floor. 'I won't blame you... I'd deserve it.'

'Not yet,' Remus answers mildly, wand-point trained on his former friend's chest. 'I want you to tell me the truth first, Black.' The surname feels wrong on his tongue, and he pointedly ignores the way Sirius flinches at the harsh sound of it. 'Why did you do it?'

Sirius closes his eyes in a pained grimace, his head falling back against the floor. '...I didn't trust you. I was a fool, and I didn't... I thought he'd keep them safe.'

'You thought _Vol_ \-- we _knew_ he wanted them dead, Sirius! Why the _fuck_ would you think--'

'Wormtail,' says Sirius, his quicksilver gaze now locked on Remus's face. 'Not... it was Wormtail; he was supposed to...' His face twists in disgust. 'I _trusted_ the Rat.'

'You killed Peter.'

'I wish I had,' Sirius spits. 'Then he wouldn't be able to...' His expression shifts to something desperate, panicked, and he pushes himself up to sitting, skeletal fingers brushing the hem of Remus's robe. '...Harry, is Harry safe?'

To his shame, Remus doesn't know where Harry is. He hasn't had any word of him since Dumbledore insisted that of course he was safe, but it was better for everyone involved if no one else knew where to find him (that Remus could not see him, or even send him the occasional birthday card). 'He is-- he's safe,' Remus bites out. 'Not that it's anything to you, after you tried to have him killed.'

'What-- no, _no_ , Moony; I'd _never_ hurt Harry; I _couldn't_ \-- should have done it myself, but I had to try to be _clever_ , and it was a mistake and it's my fault but I didn't, didn't want, thought they'd be safer if--'

A cold sort of certainty washes over Remus, and he stumbles back, catches himself against the wall-- he feels like the floor has been ripped from beneath his feet. 'You _switched_ ,' he whispers, and knows he's right as soon as the words leave his lips. 'You weren't-- they made _Peter_ the secret-keeper. It wasn't you.'

Sirius shakes his head, hair hanging in his face. 'My idea. My fault.'

'No,' Remus says, more firmly. He reaches out and grasps Sirius by the hand, pulls him to his feet. 'You weren't the one who betrayed them, Padfoot-- you only wanted them to be safe. Isn't that right?'

'But I betrayed _you_ ,' he whispers. 'I thought you were the one who...'

'And I spent years thinking you were guilty, Sirius,' Remus replies quietly. 'If you can forgive me for that, for taking so long to do anything about it... that's all I could ask for.'

Sirius gives a dry cracked sob in response, and Remus pulls him in close-- careful to give him ample opportunity to pull back if he wants to, but Sirius leans into the embrace, holds on like he's drowning and Remus is his lifeline. He feels even more frail than he looks-- too light, as though part of him was washed away.

'We're okay, Pads,' Remus murmurs, rubbing slow comforting circles across his back. 'We're going to be okay...'

They stay like that for quite a long while, with Sirius's breath shuddering like dry leaves in winter as he sobs into Remus's shoulder-- the Sirius of before would have been mortified at the thought of breaking down like this, but the current Sirius simply gives himself up to the moment, years of agony and grief catching up to him all at once. Remus waits it out, tears of his own soaking into Sirius's hair and breath clawing at his ribs, crying in each other's grip until they have both thoroughly exhausted themselves.

  
**iii.**

Somehow, they'd found their way to the bed and collapsed on the hard lumpy mattress-- Sirius doesn't remember moving, but now he's folded into Remus's arms, and it's as though they've fallen over a decade back in time, back to when they were boys easing one another's nightmares within the warm burgundy drapes of a Hogwarts four-poster...

But the rented room is bland and impersonal, its narrow single bed rather too small for two grown men. Sirius lifts his head, wiping his face on his filthy sleeve. 'What's going on, then?' he says. 'You knew I'd be here, but... going by your reaction they can't have caught the Rat, so...'

Remus blinks, and props himself up on one elbow. 'Oh-- you mean they didn't tell you?'

'Nothing at all,' Sirius replies, a touch bitterly. 'Only the briefest mention of my sentence being overturned.' 

'Mm... it would be more accurate to say that it was invalid all along. You never got a trial, you know, which is horribly illegal.'

Sirius does know-- not that it would have done him any good. He might even have confessed; he'd been half-mad with grief... 'Loads of the Death Eaters in Azkaban never got trials,' Sirius points out.

'I suppose not... but that's not all.' Remus draws a piece of parchment out of his robe. 'This is a copy of your original sentencing document. They got your name wrong.'

Sirius takes the parchment and stares down at it, dumbfounded. 'My...?'

Among old wizarding families, it is the accepted tradition for middle names to be given in honour of an older relative-- and it is nearly always the case that a firstborn daughter will take the mother's name, while the firstborn son will be named for the father. In accordance with this tradition, Sirius Black had been given the middle name _Orion_ , the loyal hunting-dog following the great warrior across the skies.

Sirius had hated everything it meant-- the symbolic implication that he was destined to follow dutifully in his father's footsteps, fated to continue the family line and all its worst traditions-- and as soon as possible he'd gone to the Ministry and had it changed.

Very few people ever knew of this, as his middle name was rarely mentioned in day-to-day conversations-- the knowledge was essentially limited to his closest friends and the witnesses present on the day of the change. With the speed of his conviction, they must have overlooked the documentation... but of course Remus would have remembered.

'So _you_ told them,' Sirius says softly, brushing fingertips over the name inked onto the document: _Sirius Orion Black_ , penned in bold blocky letters. 'That Ministry man called me Sirius Alphard, when they came to get me out.'

'...It was only a few months ago that I located a copy of the documents,' Remus explains softly. 'I was... tired, of not knowing, not understanding... All those years, and I still couldn't see how I'd been so wrong about you.'

Sirius hesitates, biting his lower lip, making the chapped skin crack and bleed-- but he has to _know_ , no matter what the answer is. 'If I _had_ been guilty... you would have done it, wouldn't you.' _You would have killed me_.

Remus withdraws his arm from around Sirius's side. 'I... meant to, yes,' he admits, looking down at his hands. 'But I'm glad I didn't have to find out if I could.'

Sirius hates the look of uncertainty on Remus's face, and settles close against his side. 'I don't blame you for that. I'd have done the same-- tried to, with the Rat, and...'

'Peter's still alive, then.'

'Cut off his finger and blew up the street behind his back,' Sirius whispers, 'after he'd shouted that I was the traitor for everyone to hear. He transformed and ran into the rubble.' Sirius takes a deep shuddering breath. 'Dunno where he might've gone after, or if he's still... but he was alive last I saw of him.'

'God,' Remus murmurs, 'I'm so sorry.'

'Don't be. Wasn't your fault.'

'Still...' Remus shifts, and pulls something else from his pocket. 'Here.'

Sirius blinks at the bar of chocolate in Remus's hand, and breaks into laughter, the sort he couldn't hold back if he tried. 'Oh Moony... never change.'

'I'm serious; you'll feel better if you have some.'

'Funny,' he replies solemnly, snapping off a piece of chocolate, 'Last I checked, you were Remus, and I was Sirius.'

Remus gives a choked sort of laugh, and Sirius grins and pops the chocolate square into his mouth. Everything is still a horrible mess, but he allows himself a glimmer of hope that somehow they'll find a way through this.

**Author's Note:**

> subscribe to the series for more ridiculous fix-it AUs! these will all be standalones, in varying degrees of absurdity.


End file.
